iThinks

Text Editor Choice & Peer Pressure

I am a VIM user and have been for quite a long time (~7 years). I am both a vim plugin author and also like to believe I have helped a lot of people switch / grok the core philosophy that I believe distinguishes it from all other editors and gives it an edge (IMO).

However, in this article I am not here to convince you to choose VIM as your choice of text editor, on the contrary, I am going to suggest you to do the opposite, especially if the only motivation to do so is driven by some form of peer pressure.

I will confess, I have been in that camp in the past where I would try to ‘convert’ other developers I see struggle (matter of perception) with other editors doing very basic tasks. Although my intentions have always been to help them improve their development setup & productivity, I have come to realise that this is wrong and perhaps even immoral.

When it comes to text editors, there is always a learning curve involved. The learning curve varies amongst different editors. For most modern editors this learning curve is often very low, however for more complex editors like VIM it is quite steep.

For a lot of people, this isn’t worthwhile and for good reason. There are far more important things that what text editor we use on a daily basis, be it for programming or otherwise. Moreover, if you are comfortable with your current choice and it does not hinder your thought process / development process you shouldn’t have to think about switching.